Month: February 2015

Federal health officials offered a break Friday to uninsured Texans who could be facing fines for not obtaining health insurance by the Feb. 15 deadline established by the Affordable Care Act. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services created a special enrollment period for uninsured people who face fines when they file their income taxes this year so that they do not face higher fines next year. This special enrollment will be only for people in states with federally run marketplaces, like Texas.

Even as Gov. Greg Abbott took public pride Tuesday that his legal handiwork had succeeded in blocking the imminent implementation of President Barack Obama’s executive action to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, the Obama administration said that Abbott’s victory would be short-lived. “We plan to appeal; we expect to prevail,” Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, told reporters on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. “At the end of the day, we expect this to be a successful process.”